Somewhere in the hallowed gloom of Godgrave, within a temple etched from ruin itself, the Scion of Shadows nearly toppled over in disbelief.
He was saved not by grace or poise, but by the frantic devotion of his shadows—who, rather than witness their deity faceplant into sanctified stone, chose annihilation over dishonor and held him upright with the desperation of loyal minions on overtime.
Meanwhile, in the Academy, Sunny appeared composed as ever. A perfect statue of calm.
Nephis, on the other hand, faltered. Only slightly. But for someone like her, that was as loud as a scream.
"Ah, but don't misunderstand," Sunny began, his voice mild as cold fire. "I am not in accord with those three pitiful fools who think their sovereignty will save humanity."
He stepped forward, and Nephis instinctively raised the tenebrific odachi. Her movements were sharp, deliberate.
Fear? No—vigilance.
The Nephis he loved would never be frightened by mere words.
"Worry not, Lady Nephis," Sunny said with a small tilt of his head. "I am here because I have taken a liking to you…"
She blinked, confused. A flicker passed across her face—'A liking to me?'
Sunny stilled. Realized. Cursed himself.
Backpedaled with the grace of a man who hated every step.
"What I meant," he said, voice tightening, "was that I've taken a liking to your opinion of them."
The tone shifted. A hush wrapped around his words. As he walked closer, he lifted a finger and gently tapped the odachi. It dissolved into vapor and shadow beneath his touch.
"It is my regret," he said softly, "that I could not save your father. He was… a great loss."
A beat.
"For all of us."
Nephis didn't flinch. Didn't breathe. But her silence held a sharp edge. Even disarmed, she didn't lower her guard.
"How do you know my opinion of them?"
Sunny didn't answer immediately. Inside, the walls of his mind were crumbling. Guilt clawed its way up from his chest like rot.
Damnation. Too much. Again.
But outwardly, he remained a silhouette of control. Barely.
"Nothing stays hidden from the shadows, Lady Nephis," he said quietly. "Some might even say… you told me yourself."
Nephis nodded in understanding, then asked: "And what do you intend to do now?"
A pause. Thicker than before.
"I intend to form an alliance. I've seen your strength. Not just in battle, but in conviction. And I believe, when the time comes… you'll stand at the front of humanity's last hope."
His voice turned low, heavy.
"…Not just against the creatures of nightmare."
Another silence.
"…But against whatever else may come."
Nephis studied him, the same way one studies a dying star—too far to touch, too close to ignore.
"And the other three?" she asked at last. "And what makes you think I'll even survive long enough to matter?"
The shadows in the room stirred.
With a wave, they coiled and molded into a pair of chairs—elegant, grim things. He gestured to the one across from him.
"It's simple," he said. "They're cowards. Unfit for what lies ahead. But even cowards can serve a purpose. If not as warriors…"
He leaned forward.
"…then as dogs."
His smile cut. Bitter. Quiet.
"And if they won't kneel, then they'll be offered mercy—my mercy, of death."
He leaned back, slower now. The edge dulled, but not gone.
"As for your survival… fret not. I'll see you through the Dream Realm. Through whatever else may follow. Until you reach sovereignty yourself."
Nephis's hands had started to move—subconscious motions, nervous, uncertain. She caught herself, stilled them.
Then looked him in the eye.
"I understand," she said. "But why now?"
Her voice cracked—just once.
"Why only now?"
The air thickened. Heavy with things unsaid.
"If you were here… if you saw it all… why didn't you stop them?"
Another crack. Sharper.
"You could've stopped them." Her voice broke fully now, the syllables fraying at the edges. "My clan. My family. My father—"
She stopped. Bit down on her lip.
"They could have helped you. They would have helped you. So why?"
Sunny looked away.
And when he returned his gaze, he looked older. More human than sovereign. Haunted.
"I couldn't."
His voice was hollow. Dry as a crypt.
"I had no strength. No chance. No place in the story."
He inhaled sharply through his nose.
"I've lived… many lives. Across many shadows. I don't carry many regrets."
A pause.
"But that one…"
His voice faltered.
"That one has never left me."
He raised his head, and for the first time, let her see what he'd kept hidden.
Eyes of black, drowning—not with rage, but ruin.
"I don't want to carry it anymore."
He extended his hand.
"So. Lady Nephis. Will you allow my pitifully fated existence to stand beside you—assist you—until we are equals in strength, in purpose, in resolve?"
Nephis stared at the hand. Then at him.
Her fingers moved. Hesitated.
She reached forward—
And touched only air.
Sovereign Sunless had vanished.
Silence pressed in like fog. Cold, aching.
Then a voice cut through the stillness:
"All Awakened are under curfew at this hour! Who is in the armory?!"
It was Awakened Rock.
And Nephis… was alone.
***
Somewhere in the ruined hush of the Nameless Temple, the Scion of Shadows collapsed.
Held upright not by strength or will, but by the last, trembling loyalty of his dying shadows.
He was seething.
With rage.With sorrow.With regret.
"DAMNATION!"
The roar shattered the silence like a blade through bone.He didn't care who heard—god, ghost, or eldritch mistake.Let them come.
They would kneel or be consumed.
This was his realm now.
It's the domains, he realized. It was always the domains…
A voice, ancient and dry as bone, crackled behind him.
"You aren't thinking straight, boy."
Eurys tried—and failed—to calm an angry god.
What comfort could a talking skull offer to a deity broken on the wheel of fate?
"YOU BASTARD!" Sunny bellowed."DID YOU SEND ME BACK TO WATCH ME BREAK?! TO LAUGH AS I LOST HER AGAIN?!"
He wasn't prone to tantrums. Not known for outbursts.
But something had broken.
Nephis had cracked him once. This time, she shattered him.
And in that ruin, something monstrous stirred.
"I left her… again. Like the coward I swore I'd never be."
"Do not curse the gods, fool!" Eurys snapped."Not even in death!"
But it was far too late.
Sunny had let go.
The Fragment of the Shadow's Realm, once bound by will alone, was unshackled.
The shadows heard.
And they obeyed.
They stirred. Whispered. Writhed.
Then surged like a tide broken from its chains.
The Fragment fractured.
It lunged outward in two directions—toward Bastion and toward Ravenheart—Like spears of judgment flung by a vengeful god.
Two incarnations of Sunless followed, grinning with the serenity of apocalypse.
In their wake, light fled.And beneath it—quietly, imperceptibly—the domains began to unravel.
In Bastion, a king forging a blade froze mid-strike.His soul twitched.
"…a fourth."
Weapons rose. Armor sealed. War had come knocking.
In Ravenheart, a queen pinned to her throne by a blade through her heart stirred.
"Who did that bastard piss off this time?"
Sunny was no longer content to wait.
He tore across distance.
One moment: scattered across dream and waking.The next: standing in Bastion's throne room.
Only a servant.A man with a cane—Jest of Clan Dragonet.
Wrong target.
The shadows flared.
Another blink. Another breach.
In the royal chamber, Saints and Masters rose.
By the time they moved, their heads had already fallen.
Only the dead remained to testify.
Then, Sunny felt him.
The King of Swords.
Sunny stepped into the castle courtyard like a storm wearing flesh.
There he stood—Anvil—with his army behind him.
"Identify yourself," the king commanded, voice edged with steel and sovereignty.
Sunny stepped forward.
Shadows danced. The heavens recoiled.
"I am Sovereign Sunless," he said, voice low and lethal."The Divine Heir of Death. The bastard of fate. And I have come—"
A pause. A breath.
"—to grant you the mercy of death. My mercy."
The world held its breath.
Then—
The entirety of Bastion was consumed.
Darkness.True, devouring, eternal.
Screams echoed like shattered hymns.
Pain. Horror. Begging. Silence.
When the veil lifted—
Only two figures remained.
One King. One God.
And a graveyard of Saints.
Anvil stood tall. Unbroken. Calculating.He raised his sword—
"Kneel."
The word struck like a divine decree.
The shadows stirred, twisted, dared the king to resist.
Sunny spoke again.This time, not as a man.Not even as a Sovereign.
But as Death's rightful heir.
"I COMMAND THEE—KNEEL!"
The world cracked.
And where once stood a proud king,There now knelt a man in armor.
Broken. Stripped.Kneeling before the Scion of Shadows.
Far across the realm, the Jade Palace stood still.
Carved from moonlight and old jade, it radiated power, nobility, and silence.
At its heart sat a queen—Not a woman. Not merely a ruler.A Sovereign.
Unmoving. Unbowed.The apex of empire, sharpened on the whetstone of sacrifice.
Before her knelt six daughters.
Saints, paragons of war and grace.Each one a legend.Each one nothing beside her.
"It seems," the queen murmured,"that Anvil has angered someone he should not have."
Revel, the eldest, stepped forward.
"Do you know who it is, Mother?"
The Queen did not answer.
Her expression—usually unreadable—shifted.
Her pupils contracted.
Her breath hitched.
Was that… fear?
Revel turned to follow her gaze.
So did her sisters.
They should not have.
Their knees buckled.Their souls recoiled.Their bodies refused.
It wasn't that they wouldn't face him.It was that they couldn't.
As if looking upon him might unravel their very being.
As if they weren't gazing upon a man…
…but upon a grave.
A soft voice broke the silence, curling like smoke around a noose.
"Enjoying your power?"
It sounded young.Too young.
The Queen rose, slow and deliberate, spine iron-straight.
"Who are you to intrude upon the throne of Ravenheart?"
She tried for command. For majesty.
But her voice faltered.
A crack. A tremor.
He smiled.
Not kindly.
A grim, joyless twist of lips that promised ruin.
"You are graced by the presence of Death itself."
He stepped forward.
Shadows lapped at his feet like reverent beasts.
The sisters gasped. The walls creaked. The throne wept frost.
"Rejoice."
He raised a hand.
The palace dimmed.
Lanterns snuffed.The sun fled.
He spoke again, and the Jade Palace shook.
"For I shall grant you my mercy."
The Queen stood.
Cloaked in jade. Armored in centuries.
Before her stood the man who whispered damnation into Bastion's bones.
Now, he whispered to her.
"You speak as if you are owed reverence," she hissed, summoning her blade.
"I owe nothing to shadows."
A flicker of pride echoed in her daughters—Saints, blood of royalty, weapons of empire.
Sunless only smiled.
A slow, joyless smile.
"The dead say that, too."
He took a step.
The air dimmed. The throne room shivered.
No energy flared.No weapon drawn.
Just presence.
Reality itself flinched.
One by one, the Saints knelt.
Not from mercy.Not from grace.
But because Death had spoken,And even pride knew when to bow.
The Queen stood. Sword etched in her heart
Alone.Cracking.Refusing.
And then—
She broke.
Her blade fell, ringing like a funeral bell.
And she, Sovereign of Ravenheart, lowered herself to the stone.
Her head bowed.Kneeling.Before the Scion of Shadows.Before the Bastard of Fate.Before the Prince of Death.
THIS IS JUST AN ANTIC, I WAS BORED SO I WROTE THIS... REAL CHAPTER WILL BE UPLOADED LATER.